The past month has not been marked by any movements of importance in any of these departments. Our publishers have generally confined their issues to works especially intended for the holiday season. Most of our public men have been recruiting themselves from the fatigues of the late protracted session of Congress, or preparing, by taking part in the political canvass, for the session that is at hand. Mr. CLAY was received at Lexington with abundant demonstrations of enthusiastic personal and political affection. He has remained at home during the vacation. Mr. WEBSTER has been spending some weeks at his farm in Marshfield, and at his native town, Franklin, N.H. During his stay at the latter place a number of his old friends and neighbors paid him a visit, and sat down to an old-fashioned dinner, at which friendly greetings were exchanged with their distinguished host. The occasion was one of rare enjoyment. Mr. WEBSTER's health has been very sensibly benefited by this greatly needed interval of relaxation from public duties. In some remarks made at an informal meeting with some friends in Boston, Mr. W. said that for six months during the last session of Congress, he had not slept two hours any one night. A public dinner was recently given at Boston to AMIN BEY, the Turkish Envoy to the United States, by some of the merchants of Boston. THOMAS B. CURTIS presided, and a large number of distinguished guests were present. AMIN BEY replied to a toast complimentary to the Sultan, by expressing his warm sense of the friendliness with which he had been received in this country, and his earnest desire for an extension of commerce and of mutual kind offices between his own government and that of the United States. Mr. WEBSTER made a brief and eloquent response to a toast thanking him for his efforts in behalf of the Union. In the course of his remarks he said that "the slavery question New England could only interfere with as a meddler: she had no more to do with it than she had with the municipal government of a city in the Island of Cuba." Very eloquent speeches, breathing similar sentiments, were made by EDWARD EVERETT, Mr. WINTHROP, and others and J.P. BROWN Esq., the interpreter of AMIN BEY, responded happily to a toast complimenting Hon. GEORGE P. MARSH the American Minister at Constantinople. Mr. BROWN said that as a diplomatist and a scholar Mr. Marsh enjoyed, in an eminent degree, the respect and esteem of the enlightened young Sultan of Turkey, and all his Ministers.